Steve Ellner, a retired professor at the Universidad de Oriente in Venezuela, where he lived for over 40 years and Andreína Chávez, based in Caracas, who wrote the recent DropSite News article, “War of the entire people: Venezuela’s Grassroots Rise to Resist Trump’s Naval Blockade,” examine the consequences of Donald Trump’s attack on Venezuela and kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro, in Venezuela, Latin America and the world.
SCOTT HARRIS: Right now I’m very happy to welcome to our program, Steve Ellner, an associate managing editor of Latin American Perspectives—he’s been a retired professor at the Universidad de Oriente in Venezuela, where he worked and lived for 40 years. Also on the line with us is Andreína Chávez, a journalist based in Caracas, Venezuela, who recently wrote the article “War on the Entire People: Venezuela’s grassroots rise to resist Trump’s naval blockade.” And that was written for Drop Site News published just before the U.S. invasion and kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Steve and Andreína, thank you both for joining us tonight.
STEVE ELLNER: Good to be on the program, Scott.
ANDREÍNA CHÁVEZ: Thank you for having me.
SCOTT HARRIS: Hey, Andreína. So I think most of our listeners are aware of the events over the past 72 hours and I don’t need to summarize that. But it was interesting today in an arraignment in New York City, we had Nicolás Maduro address the court saying in no uncertain terms that he was kidnapped and was a prisoner of war. I wanted to ask you first, Andreína, what is the situation like in Venezuela this evening after the U.S. military attack and the abduction of President Maduro on Saturday?
ANDREÍNA CHÁVEZ: So let me tell you, Sunday, an hour ago we heard some drone sounds in the sky and we heard some gunshots and everybody was immediately alarmed and we were scared. We thought that maybe we were going to be attacked again. Thankfully, the sphere is under control and there was some unauthorized drones flying over Caracas and they were taken down by the Venezuelan forces. And that happened only an hour ago and I’m still shaking about the situation because of course we are all very tense. And in our town we think that something else is going to happen. They’re going to attack again. And I think that’s a reflection of what we are living in the past 72 hours. We, on Jan. 3rd, at 2 a.m. in the morning, we were woken up by the sound of very loud explosions and the sound of planes on the sky.
And we really quickly found out that Venezuela was being attacked. The Venezuelan government confirmed that we were under military aggression by the United States, that Caracas had been hit in several places, at least seven sites in Caracas were hit by U.S. bombs. Among the military side were also just residential buildings. Also other states like Aragua, Miranda, they were also hit by U.S. bomb. And of course, right after that, we found out that Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, had been kidnapped by the United States and they are now in New York facing these completely fabricated charges against them. We all know that Venezuela is not a drug-producing country. There is international data that demonstrates that Venezuela is not neither a drug-producing country or a country that plays any kind of significant role in drug trafficking. All the charges against President Maduro are completely made up and Venezuela knows that.
Venezuelan people know that. So we have been rallying in the streets, we have been showing support for President Maduro denouncing that he’s returned to Venezuela. His recent words when he appeared in front of the judge and he said, “I am a prisoner of war. I have been kidnapped. I am still the president of Venezuela.” That has resonated very deeply within the Venezuelan people. That show of dignity of strength has really made people feel like, “Yes, we’re still resistant.” I mean, they haven’t actually … Mexican media is portraying the U.S. operation against Venezuela as a success because they kidnapped President Maduro. So they committed these tremendous injustice, but they didn’t succeed. But the Venezuelan government is still in place. And now Vice President Delcy Rodriguez has taken power and we still have a government. The Bolivarian process is still in power.
SCOTT HARRIS: Right. Well, thank you for that. I wanted to ask you one more question before we get to our other guests, Steve Ellner on the line. Andreina, what do we know about the casualties? People who died during this attack. I’ve read reports of 80 people having been killed in the U.S. bombing of military bases and possibly some residential areas among them, 32 Cuban military personnel. What can you tell us about the death and destruction caused by the attack on Saturday?
ANDREÍNA CHÁVEZ: So we have reports that at least 80 people were killed in these attacks. We have confirmation from the Cuban government and the Venezuelan government that 32 Cuban nationals were killed defending President Maduro and defending Venezuela against the U.S. attacks. We also have confirmation that at least we had the name of at least one of the civilians who died because of the U.S. bombing. I was able to verify that a 80-year-old woman, her name is Rosa Gonzalez. She died during the U.S. bombings in Catia La Mar, La Guaira state. She was sleeping and the U.S. bombs sort of throw her up from the bed and she died because of the injuries. We also know that at least another person in El Hatillo, Miranda state also died because of the U.S. bombing. And the information right now is still ongoing. We’re still trying to understand exactly the damage that the U.S. bombs actually affected at (unintelligible) other population.
We know that several electrical towers were taken down by U.S. bombs. So there were dozens of neighborhoods in Caracas and around Caracas that were left without electricity because they attacked this electrical power. We also know that there are families displaced in several places whose houses were near military sites, so they were affected by the impact of the bombs. And so the population, of course, the Venezuelan population has suffered because of this attack. It is completely untrue, but the China administration is saying that everything was a surgical operation, that everything was successful, that nobody was harmed. But Venezuelan people were hurt and that is a fact.
SCOTT HARRIS: Thank you for that, Andreína. I wanted to turn to Steve Ellner, also on the line with us, associate managing editor of Latin American Perspectives publication. And Steve, what do we know about the Trump plan for Venezuela? They’ve given contradictory declarations with Trump saying the U.S. will run Venezuela. Secretary of State Marco Rubio denying that the U.S. was going to run Venezuela. But there’s been a lot of speculation about Vice President Delcy Rodriguez now serving as acting president and the level of cooperation that she is or isn’t giving to the Trump regime after this attack and the kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro. What can you tell us about that?
STEVE ELLNER: Yeah. Well, okay, Scott, there are two questions here. One is, what does Trump have in mind? What is his plan? And the fact of the matter is that there is a great amount of vacillation with Trump, you never know, but that has something to do with the fact that within the Trump movement, there are different tendencies, there are different currents and they don’t coincide completely. So that the hawks led by Marco Rubio, he sees this as an ideological struggle of defeating communism, whatever that means, and Venezuela is just the first step. But for him, it’s important to bring about regime change. So he announced that the blockade, and it is basically a blockade in which Venezuelan oils can’t get out of Venezuela. That’s going to continue. The idea is to starve Venezuela to death, to bring about regime change. On the other hand, the MAGA people and Trump listens to them also, the MAGA people are really concerned about what’s good for America.
America being the United States, by the way, not all of the Americans. And so that’s about the oil. That’s what the MAGA people are concerned with. And if some kind of solution, some kind of negotiated agreement can be reached with now Delcy Rodriguez, the acting president, then that would be fine. So it’s really unclear what course the United States is going to follow, whether it’s going to be a regime change, keeping the blockade and not allowing oil to get out, which is really Venezuela’s lifeline. Or whether some kind of agreement will be reached with Delcy Rodriguez. Now, you say that there’s all kind of speculation about her. In my mind, it’s quite clear. Some people were saying that Delcy Rodriguez planned this whole thing because she was vice president and she wanted to become president. I think that says more about the people who were stating that and believe that, that everybody’s out for themselves and everybody is maneuvering in order to benefit personally.
But the fact is that Delcy Rodriguez is committed to a cause. Her father wasa leftist guerilla in the ’60s and then in the non-guerrilla period in the ’70s, he was captured, tortured and killed by the government. And so she, I mean, she has a sense of commitment to an ideological struggle or whatever Chavismo stands for. She’s committed to that. And there’s really no evidence that she reached some kind of deal. Now, it is true that she is trying to do the same thing that (Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva) Lula was trying to do, that (Mexican President Claudia) Sheinbaum is trying to do, which is not to get on Trump’s bad side. I mean, they know full well that any statement that they make could rub Trump the wrong way. And as a result, he could act in any kind of fashion, so that she’s quite discreet. She’s quite careful in what she’s saying today.
But yesterday, she did state that the president of Venezuela is Nicolás Maduro and that he’s been kidnapped. So there’s no question about her position. But at this point, what she wants to do is to negotiate some kind of agreement. So what I said before about the two possibilities, either starving Venezuela to death through this blockade or reaching some kind of agreement with regard to investment in oil, she wants to make sure that it’s the second strategy that plays out.
SCOTT HARRIS: Thank you for that, Steve. Andreína, I did want to ask you about what the opposition leaders are saying in Venezuela in response to the U.S. attack and abduction of President Maduro. Given the fact that Donald Trump had some unexpected words to say about opposition leader María Corina Machado, saying she wasn’t qualified or respected enough to lead Venezuela, that rubbed a lot of Venezuelan exiles here in the United States the wrong way. And I’m certain that the opposition is also divided about that comment from Trump. What can you tell us about the opposition groups and what they’re saying or not saying in this current moment of crisis?
ANDREÍNA CHÁVEZ: You have to understand that once Trump said that María Corina Machado did not have the support of the Venezuelan people, that she was not qualified to be the leader, that was a hard blow for her from the entire radical opposition in Venezuela. So the opposition has been very quiet in that sense. There are other sectors of the Venezuelan position who are not with María Corina Machado. They are actually against María Corina Machado. They are more centrist and they reject U.S. intervention. They understand the need to defend Venezuela and sovereignty and they are not supporting the U.S. attack on Venezuela. But like I said, the radical opposition of Venezuela, the one that has been calling for U.S. invasion or intervention in Venezuela. They were hit really hard when Trump said that she was not qualified and that is the truth. That is one of the very few moments in which Trump has actually said something that is true.
María Corina Machado has never had popular support inside Venezuela. She has never had that.
And that shows right now because the streets of Venezuela, they are not filled with people celebrating that the U.S. attacked Venezuela. They’re not celebrating that Maduro was kidnapped. The streets of Venezuela are very quiet right now, understandably because people are afraid of U.S. attacks happening again. At the same time, if the Chavista people who are on the streets who have been rallying these past two days, marching, denouncing the U.S. attacks, making these improvised stages and speaking on the microphone, everybody’s speaking their mind, just saying that they want President Maduro back in Venezuela. That they reject Trump’s claims that Venezuela has to just give the United States all of its oil and all of it, all of our resources. So people have been, the Chavista people in popular organizations and people who maybe do not support Nicolás Maduro, but they also defend our sovereignty and they do not want a U.S. intervention.
Also in industry, I have been speaking with some of these people and they say the same. We don’t want a U.S. intervention. We don’t want to become a U.S. colony. That is not what people want.
SCOTT HARRIS: I did want to ask you, Andreína, to talk about the possibility or the concern or fear of a potential violent struggle for power in Venezuela after Nicolás Maduro’s abduction to the U.S. Is there concern in the streets of Venezuela and the people you talk to about instability which could breed violence and factions fighting each other?
ANDREÍNA CHÁVEZ: So I believe that is what the Trump administration was hoping it will happen once they bombed Venezuela and once they kidnapped Maduro and his wife. They had hoped that people will go out in the streets that there will be violence, that there will be some kind of civil war in Venezuela and that didn’t happen. And it’s not going to happen either. People are not even … Some people were speculating that there was going to be some kind of looting, some kind of chaos in the streets and that is completely far away from the truth. Like I said, most people are just very calmly trying to find supplies, find food, medicine and water, just in case, just to have enough things inside their houses in case something else happens, and then the Chavista people going to the streets. So no, not at all. I think that was what Trump wanted to happen in Venezuela.
So he wanted the Venezuelan people to continue the regime change again. That’s not going to happen.
SCOTT HARRIS: Thank you, Andreína. Steve, we only have a few minutes left and I wanted to ask you this final question. Assess for us the state of the oil industry inside Venezuela and Trump’s declaration that the U.S. owns Venezuela’s oil and charges that the U.S. oil companies are owed billions of dollars. And there’s been news reports that Trump has told the U.S. oil companies to get back into Venezuela and start pumping oil again, although that’s a project that might take many years. But we only have a couple of minutes left here, but what’s your view of Trump’s announcement and pronouncements about Venezuela’s oil belonging to the U.S.?
STEVE ELLNER: Well, you know, Scott, it demonstrates complete ignorance about Venezuelan legislation. Venezuelan legislation like the rest of much of Latin America—but in the case of Venezuela going back to Símon Bolivar in the struggle for independence—the soil and the subsoil belongs to the nation. That’s a fundamental principle in Venezuela and the oil companies knew that. I mean, they invested in Venezuela knowing full well that they were not owning the land.
Now, Trump is saying that Venezuela has to give back the land and the oil. But the fact of the matter is that the land never belonged to them. Secondly, he states that the oil was robbed, was taken from the oil company. But the fact of the matter is that at no point did the government reject the idea of compensation. The oil was nationalized in 1976 and the oil companies were compensated. (The late President Hugo) Chavez renationalized the oil industry and the same thing happened.
Now that happened, that so-called renationalization, which was really a reaction to the neoliberal period of the 1990s, that was in 2007. And some changes were made, one of which was that the employees were transferred to the payroll of the state oil company. Chevron accepted that. They stayed. Exxon and ConocoPhillips left, but they weren’t forced out of Venezuela. This is stated time and time again by the Trump administration. It’s not picked up by the corporate media. Those two oil companies left Venezuela of their own accord. They were not expelled from Venezuela. More recently, Maduro was in negotiations with ConocoPhillips and there was a possibility that they would reinvest in Venezuela again. But that is simply not true that the oil was taken from the United States. And this narrative that the United States built the oil industry, thanks to the United States, the installations were constructed.
I mean, these were Venezuelans who were performing that. And that really, I mean, Venezuelans who listened to that narrative, that listened to Trump’s talk just goes against the sense of pride and nationalism because the oil industry was all about Venezuelans. It was the result of the effort of Venezuelans and the idea that it was the United States that built the industry is deceptive.
SCOTT HARRIS: All right. Well, I want to thank you both, Andreína Chávez, a journalist based in Caracas for joining us as well as you, Steve Ellner, an associate managing editor of Latin American Perspectives. Appreciate your reporting and commentary on what we’ve seen unfold over the last 72 hours with the U.S. attack on Venezuela and the abduction of President Nicolás Maduro. I will hope to be back in touch with you for future programs as this really uncertain future in Venezuela unfolds. Appreciate your spending time with us and our audience tonight, both you, Steve, and Andreína. Thank you again.
STEVE ELLNER: Thank you, Scott.
ANDREÍNA CHÁVEZ: Thank you so much for having me.
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